Do international rankings affect public opinion?
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241230859 |
| Author | Amnon Cavari,Asif Efrat,Omer Yair |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241230859
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 349 –368
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13691481241230859
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Do international rankings
affect public opinion?
Amnon Cavari, Asif Efrat
and Omer Yair
Abstract
International rankings push governments to adopt better policies by providing comparative
information on states’ performance. How do citizens respond to this information? We answer this
question through a preregistered survey experiment in Israel, testing the effect of rankings in the
fields of human rights and the environment. We find that citizens respond to international rankings
selectively. Informed about a high ranking given to their country, citizens tend to express a more
positive assessment of the country’s performance. By contrast, they seem to dismiss poor rankings
of their country. We further find that poor rankings on a polarising issue, such as human rights,
might face a particularly strong resistance from citizens. Overall, our results engage with and support
recent scholarship sceptical of the impact of international shaming on public opinion. Even gentle
shaming – expressed through a low numerical grade – might not be well received by the public.
Keywords
environment, human rights, performance indicators, public opinion, rankings, shaming
In recent years, states have come under increasing normative pressure to change their poli-
cies and bring them closer to international standards. Among these means of pressure are
international rankings and similar indicators that offer regularised grading of the perfor-
mance of states.1 Published by various actors, international rankings typically possess sev-
eral qualities that allow them to pressure states that deviate from an internationally expected
conduct: they are public and easily available, appear regularly, and compare the perfor-
mance of dozens of countries. Through these qualities, rankings may shape state reputa-
tion: states ranked high will seem successful or effective, whereas poorly ranked states
might seem failing or illegitimate. Policymakers, concerned for the reputation of the state
and for their own good name and careers, may be motivated to change policy to restore a
damaged reputation (Davis et al., 2012; Kelley and Simmons, 2019; Merry, 2011).
But how does the general public respond to international rankings? Do citizens care
about the information that rankings convey? Do they change their assessment of their
country’s performance in accordance with international rankings? The response of the
Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, and the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility,
Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel
Corresponding author:
Asif Efrat, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, and the Institute for Liberty and
Responsibility, Reichman University, Ha’universita 8, Herzliya 4610101, Israel.
Email: asif@runi.ac.il
1230859BPI0010.1177/13691481241230859The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsCavari et al.
research-article2024
Original Article
350The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
public is consequential. In a democracy, public opinion may shape the state’s response to
external pressures and challenges (Baum and Potter, 2015; Tomz et al., 2020), and it may
certainly affect governments’ response to international rankings. On the one hand, citi-
zens can reinforce the impact of rankings by expressing dissatisfaction with the poorly
graded policy and demanding reform. On the other hand, if the public dismisses the rank-
ings, the government may feel free to reject or even denigrate them. Currently, however,
we know little about the public’s response to international rankings.
This study assesses the impact of international rankings on domestic public opin-
ion, following a similar development in the study of shaming more broadly. The lit-
erature had long overlooked shaming’s impact on domestic opinion, and several
recent studies have sought to fill this gap with conflicting results. Some studies sug-
gest that shaming may generate domestic pressure for compliance with international
standards (Ausderan, 2014; Koliev et al., 2022; Tingley and Tomz, 2022). Other stud-
ies sound a more sceptical tone, arguing that shaming may leave citizens indifferent
or even bring them to rally behind their government in a backlash effect (Greenhill
and Reiter, 2022; Gruffydd-Jones, 2019; Kohno et al., 2023). These studies focus on
‘traditional’ shaming, that is, the verbal denunciation of states by external actors.
Adding to this body of work, we examine the public response to international rank-
ings – a distinct form of shaming that uses grades to express a state’s distance from
international norms (cf. Doshi et al., 2019). Building on recent advances in the analy-
sis of public opinion, we study how rankings influence both attitudes and behavioural
intentions (Sheppard and von Stein, 2022), and how this influence varies across issue
areas (Greenhill, 2020; Koliev et al., 2022).
This article presents the results of a preregistered survey experiment in Israel, which
examined the impact of rankings in the areas of human rights and the environment among
a sample of 4016 respondents. Consistent with our expectation, the results indicate that
citizens use rankings to update their assessment of their country’s performance: respond-
ents who read about Israel receiving a high ranking expressed a more favourable assess-
ment of the country’s record compared to those informed about a low ranking.
Our evidence also suggests that while the high ranking indeed affected respondents’
views, the low ranking did not have the respective negative effect: respondents were gen-
erally disinclined to take in the low ranking and update their views accordingly. These
conditional findings suggest that citizens treat international rankings selectively: embrac-
ing the good, dismissing the bad.
Furthermore, consistent with our expectation, we find that the impact of rankings var-
ies between the area of the environment and the area of human rights. We argue that sig-
nificant polarisation over human rights in Israel left respondents less receptive to the
critical portrayal of the country’s record, as expressed in a low ranking, compared to the
ranking on the environment: an issue perceived (in Israel) as more technical and less
polarised. Indeed, the poor grade on human rights seemed to have triggered a backlash,
leading respondents to adopt a more favourable assessment of Israel’s human rights
record.
Finally, and contrary to our expectations, we find that the source of the rankings mat-
tered little. While Israelis generally have greater faith in the United States than in most
international organisations (IOs) or nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) (Fagan,
2023; Wike et al., 2022), the rankings created by these different actors had a similar effect
on respondents.
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting